For many years Russia has been undertaking every possible step to maintain the viability of the conventional arms control regime in Europe.

We have initiated negotiations on the adaptation of the Treaty on
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty), and later
ratified an Agreement on its Adaptation.

Unfortunately, NATO preferred to bypass the provisions of the CFE
Treaty by expanding its infrastructure closer to Russian borders,
preventing under petty pretexts the entry into force of the
Adaptation Agreement. This has been done despite our repeated
warnings about the current problems in European security, and
eventually led to an inevitable result - the suspension of
implementation of the “old” CFE Treaty by the Russian Federation
in 2007.

Then the Russian side, taking into account requests of a number
of parties to the CFE Treaty, decided to continue to participate
in the Joint Consultative Group (JCG) of the CFE Treaty. Indeed,
at that time we hoped that efforts would be made to restore an
effective conventional arms control regime on the continent.

However, these hopes did not come true. Consultations on the
issue have been moved outside the JCG. They were conducted in the
Russia-US format although the Treaty has always been described as
a cornerstone of security for the whole of Europe. West European
NATO members essentially stepped back and farmed everything out
to Russia and the US. Unfortunately, while they seemed to value
the Treaty, they de facto recognized that their role in salvaging
the conventional arms control regime in Europe is close to zero.

In these circumstances, the continued participation in meetings
of the JCG has become meaningless from the political and
practical points of view and unnecessarily costly. Considering
the above, Russia has decided to suspend its participation in the
JCG as of March 11. Thus, the suspension of our participation in
the CFE Treaty has become complete.

We have to acknowledge that the CFE Treaty is absolutely out of
sync with today’s realities. It is totally anachronistic. This
Treaty was worked out when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
were still around, and equal ceilings for each bloc (NATO and the
Warsaw Pact) were set on key armaments. Under the Treaty, we were
the representatives of the same group with East European
countries, which are now NATO members, which is an utter
political nonsense.

But the suspension of our participation in the Treaty does not
mean a refusal to continue and deepen a dialogue on conventional
arms control in Europe. We are willing to work together on a new
conventional arms control, which meets the interests of both
Russia and other European countries and accurately reflects new
realities in Europe and first of all the expansion of NATO. The
Russian initiative of a European Security Treaty remains a good
starting point.

Unfortunately, the very existence of dividing lines on the
continent, like laws of physics, has a logic of its own and dooms
ideas of a genuine collective security system in Europe. The
present crisis in Ukraine laid this reality bare. That is why
further militarization of international relations in Europe
without addressing “big issues” of regional security architecture
will only bring us back to square one, i.e. back in time to the
moment when the Cold War ended. One of the signs of that is
NATO’s return to territorial defense after two decades of
expansion.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.